


Scars

by quicksparrows



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: F/M, crest experiments sylvain
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-18
Updated: 2020-03-18
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:42:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,384
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23205661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quicksparrows/pseuds/quicksparrows
Summary: I'll show you mine if you show me yours.[Crest Experiments Sylvain AU]
Relationships: Sylvain Jose Gautier/Edelgard von Hresvelg
Comments: 3
Kudos: 97





	Scars

**Author's Note:**

> Spun off of [Colourless](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23189929); couldn't pass up an opportunity to dig into this a little more.

He has never been so nervous watching a girl undress.

Edelgard, for her part, is invincible in the face of scrutiny. She brushes her colourless hair behind her shoulders and reaches for the clasp of her collar. It comes undone between her gloved fingers, and then she moves to the button below her cravat. She is the only girl in the entire school who wears her jacket undone; he watches sometimes when she moves to see the high waistband of her shorts, the barest peek at her white blouse underneath. She shucks the jacket off, and then unbuttons the shirt. That tiny sliver of her cleavage blooms into an expanse of pale skin. Her scar is a the long vertical stripe over her heart, fat as a finger and bumpy as rope. He has never seen one so like his before now.

Sylvain catches himself swallowing hard.

Her eyes flick to him.

"Does this make you uncomfortable?" she asks, and then she remarks: "It was your idea."

"Would you believe I was joking?" Sylvain asks in turn, a laugh on his breath. He isn't so sure that he was. He desperately wants to see. To connect. She has been aloof with him for so long, but he's seen these glimpses of a person who might understand him, who might get it--

"No," she says, curtly. She shucks off her shirt entirely, leaving her in just a breast band on top. She has modest breasts; Sylvain thinks that he could hold one in each broad palm, and it feels intrusive to think that, even if he asked, even if she agreed. She notices him looking. She must be able to read minds. "Are you just going to stand there watching?"

"No, no," he says, and though he grins sheepishly, it feels transparent. "Sorry."

He shucks off his jacket and drapes it over her bedpost neatly, and then unbuttons his shirt. She is slow to remove her band -- he's not sure she even plans to -- and she watches him. It's nippy with the fall coming, and she has not closed the shutters of her window yet. He doesn't mind, but it feels like a lot is happening.

This isn't the moment he'd fantasized about, hunched over at his desk chair, or sprawled out in bed. Lots of people have seen his scar. Sylvain is no stranger to the furtive glance, or the awkward ways people have avoided running their hands over it. More than once he's had to turn someone over to not face him, or been asked to do so himself. There is something overwhelming about Edelgard being the one in the room, something intimate in a way he's never felt before.

She understands something about it.

"It's much less dramatic than mine," she remarks. "May I?"

She gestures with a raised hand, and she's already leaning into his space, but she does not touch him. He watches her gloved fingers hover inches from his bare chest, and then he takes it in his.

"No gloves," he tells her. It comes out a little sharp, but surely she understands. He softens it by loosening the fingertips of her gloves, one by one, and then pulling it off in one firm tug. He lays it on her bed. For a moment, neither moves, and then Sylvain grows tired of looking down at her. He sits down on her bed, and she stands between his legs, her fingers still on his chest.

She looks at him, dead in the eyes, her mouth level with his.

"I don't think it's any less dramatic," he says, finally. "You're just..."

He gestures. Smaller. Shorter. He tries to smile but it feels forced, so he puts his hand to her chest to trace a finger over her scar, and he watches her throat twitch. Her eyes close momentarily. Her eyelashes are like thick snowflakes. She's standing between his legs, and he feels the urge to pull her into his lap. He can feel her chest rise under the stroke of his finger, following the scar all the way down to the waistband of her shorts, where it disappears.

"Do the girls you sleep with make this difficult?" she asks. She reaches to the lacing on her band. It takes her an eternity to tug it, and when the bow unravels and the band falls loose, he watches her breasts swell free. He doubts her, suddenly. He's never been with anyone who understood him, not really. It seems too good to be true that she would be the first.

 _There aren't a lot of opportunities like this one,_ he wants to say, but he has a question to answer.

"The other way around," he says. He dares slide a hand to cup one breast, weighing it in his hand, the cotton of her band body-warm. His eyes never leave her scar, but he feels her breathe deeply under his palm. His tongue feels heavy in his mouth. "I'd ask the same, but I didn't get that impression about you."

"You think I'm a virgin?" she asks.

"Am I wrong?"

"No," she says, shaking her head. "Too many years of violence has made my body harden to the touch, too prepared to commit it in retribution."

Sylvain pauses. She feels supple enough under his hand, but there is a rigidity to her spine, a stiffness in the way she leans into him without pressing against him. It doesn't matter that she has taken off her shirt for him. She is still impenetrable, clad in something thicker than steel.

"I understand," he says. "Sort of. I just..."

She waits.

"I mean, what's a little more violence?" Sylvain says, lightly, but it never feels light. He watches it settle on Edelgard, and she brings a hand to his wrist. If she means to stop him, she doesn't. If she means to encourage him, she doesn't do that either. He lets out a long breath he didn't know he was holding as she shifts, sinking down to sit on his knee. The intensity in her eyes is overwhelming. He has to look away, down at the swell of her breast, at that hideous scar.

"Don't you want to end it?" she asks, barely above a whisper.

"End what?"

The words drop from his mouth like nothing. Her scar is warm under his touch, and he feels a bump under his index finger, and he doesn't know why she has to be so serious, when it's just life, it's just–– _oh,_ her hands are sliding up his chest and along the sides of his neck and settling on his cheeks. He looks her in the eyes. He doesn't have a choice; her grip on his face is so firm.

"Sylvain," she says. "If you could do something about it, would you?"

"What is there to be done?" he replied. "We belong to the people who did this."

Edelgard narrows her eyes. Her thumb strokes his cheek, but it's hard. Unforgiving. In a just world, she might have held his face between her hands and kissed him, but Sylvain is not so fortunate. There's a knock at the door, and Hubert's low voice calls Edelgard's name. Sylvain feels a sigh slip from Edelgard's lips, and she rises. She moves to collect her shirt, but Sylvain is closer, so he hands it to her.

"Just a moment," she calls in return.

She redresses with no particular hurry, just the same efficiency he sees every day around the Academy. He dresses as well, practiced in an entirely different art. He wonders how she intends to explain his presence in her room, but after she's closed her collar again, she goes to the door and greets Hubert. Sylvain freezes where he is, still sat on her bed, his shirt only buttoned to his ribs. Hubert glances at Sylvain through the open door but says nothing. He doesn't need to. When Hubert's gaze falls on the top of the scar, the message is clear.

Edelgard glances at him over her shoulder.

"Let yourself out when you're ready," she says, and then she disappears with Hubert down the hall, the door closing behind her.

Sylvain folds at the waist.

 _It doesn't matter,_ he wants to insist.

They don't live in a just world.


End file.
